Countries at the COP15 biodiversity summit in Montreal are moving closer to an agreement on how to share profits from products developed using genetic data collected from Earth鈥檚 biodiversity. It is a make-or-break issue for countries to reach a wider deal on protecting nature.
The goal of the summit is to agree on a global plan to halt and reverse biodiversity loss over the next decade. But that agreement hinges on several parallel negotiations. One of the key issues is how to address profit-sharing from biotechnologies that hold enormous promise but depend on access to Earth鈥檚 immense biodiversity to identify genes and compounds with properties that might lead to new cancer-fighting drugs, new sources of biofuel or drought- and disease-resistant crops.
Arguments over how to share resulting revenues are centred on the treatment of digital genetic data, referred to as 鈥渄igital sequence information鈥� or DSI. In 2010, more than a hundred countries committed to share benefits from genetic resources in an agreement called the Nagoya Protocol. But the language was ambiguous on whether DSI should be considered a genetic resource because it is just data, not physical tissue or genetic molecules, says at the Leibniz Institute DSMZ, a German research organisation that maintains one of the world鈥檚 most diverse collections of biological specimens and samples.
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Lower-income countries rich in biodiversity protested this ambiguity, saying it would enable 鈥渂iopiracy鈥�, with researchers able to use DSI databases to access genetic resources without obligation to share any benefits arising from its use.
African Union countries maintain they will not support a final agreement at COP15 that does not include a way to share such revenues, according to , lead negotiator on genetic resources for Namibia at COP15. Agreement among countries must be unanimous to adopt a final deal.
But after years of deadlock on the issue, negotiators at COP15 have started to make progress, reaching an agreement on 14 December that genetic data should be made accessible through an open database with common rules to share benefits between users and providers. Crucially, this would enable researchers to access genetic data without first securing permits or setting up collaborations with individual countries that supplied the data.
鈥淥penness allows the system to generate the most benefits,鈥� says at the Leibniz Institute DSMZ. She and other researchers that a rule requiring researchers to first secure permits from countries before accessing genetic data would be unworkable. Scholz says more stringent controls could also lead researchers and companies to go 鈥渏urisdiction shopping鈥� to get genetic data from places with more relaxed controls, such as the US, which is not party to the COP15 treaty. The result would be fewer funds to share, she says.
For example, an existing law that requires permits to use genetic data from Brazil has caused research collections to refuse samples from the country, and foreign researchers have been unable to describe new microbes discovered there, says , a member of the Brazilian delegation to COP15. Since 2020, the law has raised around $4 million in cash and other benefits like investment in local conservation projects, according to a presentation at COP15.
Brazil鈥檚 negotiators had previously proposed countries adopt a rule related to their existing law, but came around in negotiations on 13 December to support the more open proposal, according to people who were in the meeting. The plan is also supported by the European Union and most European countries, and is favoured by researchers and industry. 鈥淲e鈥檙e open to [it],鈥� said , a lawyer representing pharmaceutical companies at COP15. 鈥淏ut it has to be simple.鈥�
Despite previous strong opposition, Japan and South Korea have also become more flexible around such a proposal, according to people in the negotiations. Members of the Japanese delegation declined to comment.
The African Union has put forward a bold proposal for how the agreement could work. A global fund would be supplied by a 1 per cent tax on profits from products made using genetic data sourced from an open database. Proceeds would be shared with countries proportionate to the amount of genetic data within the database that originated in each country.
Du Plessis says it鈥檚 difficult to predict how much money might be generated under the plan, but he thinks it could fill a substantial amount of the financing gap needed to achieve global biodiversity targets, which he estimates at $200 billion.
If countries do reach an agreement on DSI in Montreal, it would likely take until COP16 in two years to hammer out all the details, he says. 鈥淲orst case is that we can鈥檛 get to an agreement and it crashes the whole deal. Best case is that everyone says, 鈥楾his is a good idea. Let鈥檚 do it.鈥欌��
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